page_title: Charters Towers mine shafts
section_title: Day Dawn Block and Wyndham
hierarchical_section_title: Charters Towers mine shafts / History / Day Dawn Block and Wyndham
caption_attribution_description: English: Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Mine, Charters Towers, 1904. Due to the Gold boom between 1872 and 1899, Charters Towers operated the only Stock Exchange outside of a capital city. During this period, the population was approximately 27,000, making Charters Towers, Queensland s largest City outside of Brisbane. Today the main industries are mining and beef cattle. There are also several world class boarding schools in the area. This is a photograph taken from a small album of hand coloured photographs about Charters Towers, including some mines, published by T. Willmett &amp; Son, Charters Towers in 1904.
context_page_description: Charters Towers mine shafts are a heritage-listed group of mine shafts and ruins at Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1883 to 1916. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 29 April 2003.
context_section_description: The Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Company worked three shafts on the Day Dawn reef continuously from 1883 to 1912 and was one of the three great mines on the Day Dawn lode. It had the greatest yield of any mine on the Charters Towers goldfield: 589,531 long tons (598,991 t) of ore was raised for 546,531 ounces (15,493,900 g) of gold. The mine was situated on Gold Mining Leases 1807, 1808, & 1809 on an area of 100 acres (40 ha).
  Tom Mills took up the Day Dawn Block in 1880 to complement his lease on the Wyndham mine alongside in the west. This "Block" lease, as it was known, was forfeited and then taken up by J. Malone and A. Young who formed the Day Dawn Block Company and started a vertical shaft to cut the Day Dawn lode. Litigation over this lease instituted by Mills against the company resulted in a compromise where the Wyndham lease was amalgamated with the Day Dawn Block and the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Company was formed in 1882. The No. 1 shaft was on the former Day Dawn Block lease and was on the eastern boundary of the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham lease. In June 1883 a straight shaft was sunk and it cut the Day Dawn reef at 475 feet (145 m). The Northern Mining Register Christmas Number of 1891 said, "Never before in the history of the field or perhaps in Australia, has a block shaft bottomed on such a show" The shaft was a small one but from it between the walls was taken 32 ton of stone which yielded 187 ounced 16 dwt 6 gr (of gold)." (P.51). By 1897 the No.1 shaft was abandoned.
  The No. 2 shaft was an underlie shaft and was sited on the original Wyndham lease on the eastern side of Upper Mosman Street.
  The No.3 shaft in the west was a vertical shaft to a depth of 560 feet (170 m). An underlie shaft then followed the lode and intersected a shoot at a depth of 1,200 feet (370 m). It was when this shaft was connected to the No.2 shaft at the No. 14 level that rock drills were first used with success on the goldfield: The North Queensland Register's Mining History of Charters Towers remarked that '... the ground was terrifically hard and the contractor Mr Beith, lost money.'
  In 1886 the mine was sold to a British company which in 1897 had paid- up capital of £500,000. The three mines were connected by tramway to the main rail line where the ore was transported to the company's mill at Selheim. (The mill at Selheim is extant). This was 14 miles (23 km) to the east on the Burdekin where 60 head of stamps made it the largest reducing plant of the goldfield. In 1900 the company employed 225 men.
  With reserves depleted, work started on the Talisman reef with reasonable returns from 1904 to 1906. There was a gradual decline and the company entered voluntary liquidation in 1909 with tributors working the mine until it closed in 1912.
caption: Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Mine, 1904
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